


Courage, Dear Heart

by Anonymous



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Era, F/F, Good Morgana (Merlin), Just want Morgana & Merlin to be gay sorcerer bffs, M/M, Protective Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Slow burn Merthur feat. slow burn Morgwen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-01-31 09:29:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21443989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "I just need to hear someone say it so I don't have to keep feeling like I'm imagining it."Merlin's spine goes rigid. The urge to flee is overwhelming; a sudden muffled thudding in his eardrums, a sourness in the back of his throat. He opens his mouth halfway, to tell her something that will make her leave.There's nothing to say, Morgana, orit might not bethat, orjust try to forget about it.Then he swears and turns away, pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes until his vision blooms in bright patterns. When he lowers them, the room is filled with rainbow sparks."It's magic, and I have it too."He turns his head aside to avert the possibility of being sick on Morgana's gold-embroidered gown.You can't convince me that Morgana finding out about her magic and begging Merlin for help isn't THE most pivotal moment in the series.Rated teen for some blood/violence, may increase with later chapters.
Relationships: Gwen/Morgana (Merlin), Merlin & Morgana (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 104
Kudos: 523
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

>   
  
Art by [kritastrophe](https://kritastrophe.tumblr.com/)  
Fic inspired by [this post](https://what-the-druids-call-me.tumblr.com/post/188894359808/ive-said-this-before-but-i-miss-the-merlin-and)  

> 
> * * *

"I just need to hear someone say it so I don't have to keep feeling like I'm imagining it."

Merlin's spine goes rigid. The urge to flee is overwhelming; a sudden muffled thudding in his eardrums, sourness in the back of his throat. He opens his mouth halfway, to tell her something that will make her leave. _There's nothing to say, Morgana_, or _it might not be_ that, or _just try to forget about it_.

Then he swears and turns away, pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes until his vision blooms in bright patterns. When he lowers them, the room is filled with rainbow sparks.

"It's magic, and I have it too."

Morgana clutches his still half-outstretched forearms and he turns his head aside to avert the possibility of being sick on her gold-embroidered gown.

"What did you say?" There are tears glowing on her face, but she's smiling a wide, panicked smile.

It's a look he knows. He'd worn the same one, the day he and Will had gotten into their first really nasty fight. He can't remember anymore what it was about--can only remember how the dry grass at his feet had erupted in flame, how he had stood frozen in shock before it. Will, sharp words forgotten, had tossed the flint and steel in his pocket on the ground and turned to run for the village, dragging Merlin, still stunned, by his sleeve.

Hunith had come back to the woods with them and gotten the fire out, muttering under her breath that boys of twelve winters should know better. When she handed Will his flint and began the lecture in earnest, Merlin bore it laugh-crying and gripping tightly to Will's hand. He had been caught somehow, between feverish joy and feverish terror, and the hand was his only anchor (Will's fingers had turned red and swollen, afterward, but he'd shrugged it off).

He looks sharply at the ceiling to stop the threatening tears and pulls Morgana into his arms. Her ribcage expands and contracts against him in a stuttering rhythm for a few seconds, and then her breathing becomes slow and deliberate.

"Merlin," she shrugs out of his grasp, wiping her face briskly with her sleeve, "what do I do?"

"I don't--I don't know." The words come out too loud, and he forces himself to lower his voice, "You can't tell anyone_._" It's no advice at all; hasn't she seen it more than he has? The burned bones and sodden, drowned corpses and crimson rivers of witch-blood?

Morgana shakes her head.

"I can't keep having these dreams. Even drugged, I can't bear it. A pause, and then her face twists into something that is half-anger, half-despair. It's the look Merlin sees on Arthur's face, in his dreams. _Are there any who have not betrayed me?_

"Gaius knew."

Knew, and tried to numb her power with tinctures and tisanes and oils and smelling salts_._ And Merlin hadn't stopped him.

Morgana's nostrils flare. "You don't have any idea how they've treated me." She speaks through gritted teeth, voice quiet and thick with rage. "They haul me into my chambers like I'm an embarrassment. They wipe my forehead with handkerchiefs and lavender-water, and tell me that I'm _imagining_ it."

Her gaze scorches Merlin's face. "I was never imagining it." Her anger is like heat, elemental and terrifying. Would she be able to kill him, if she wished for it badly enough?

It's strange, that magic can be so simply done. Merlin's mother had caught him once when he was just five, throwing his ball in the air without his hands. He hadn't said anything, or even made any gesture--he had only _wanted it_ _to move_. And it had.

"You're special, Merlin," Hunith told him (had her voice been shaking?). "Other people don't understand how to act when someone is special. Merlin? Whenever anyone is around that isn't Mum, you've got to pretend to be ordinary. Do you understand what I mean? You can only throw the ball with your hands."

He'd giggled in response, and she'd gotten the ball and thrown it to him with a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

It might be his oldest memory--that little ball rolling across the dirt floor, and his mother's empty, terrified smile. But she had told him that he was only special, and not broken.

"You were right every time," he says. "Your dreams were right."

Morgana's face softens, eyes glistening with unshed tears. "Thank you, Merlin."

She pauses and gathers herself, rolling her shoulders back, straightening her spine.

"I can't stay, or I'll be missed." But she stops suddenly in the threshold.

"I've been here a while. You had better give me something to take up with me."

"Oh. Right—right, good idea." Merlin rattles through a basket of small vials for longer than he should, finally closes his shaking fingers around one of the little grey liquids Gaius is always handing out for menstrual cramps and backaches.

"Can I speak with you again?" she whispers, taking it from his hands.

"Give me a little time. To think about it. I'll find you later, bring you more medicine.

She nods and walks away, her chin lifted and her back regally straight.

Gaius and Kilgarrah are going to be furious, but he can't regret any of it, now that it's happened. He's only given her what his mother and Will had given him years ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm excited about this concept but also so nervous about starting a multi-chapter work. Please leave a comment and let me know if you think there's anything that can be improved and/or if you like where it's going!


	2. A Lesson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this chapter references a (magically influenced) suicide in the final scene (after the first 3 scene breaks).

Morgana comes in (without knocking) when he's sweeping out the hearth one morning, in a swish of gleaming ringlets and diaphanous indigo fabric. She seats herself brazenly on the end of Arthur's bed, leans back on the heels of her hands with raised eyebrows.

"What are you doing?" Merlin asks, trying to emulate the incredulous expression he's seen on Gaius hundreds of times.

"It's been days and you haven't said a word." 

"Because I'm planning!" He hisses, panic rising in his throat. "This is dangerous, Morgana." 

"The only people who enter this room without knocking are you and Arthur." Merlin raises his eyebrows, gestures at her with his broom handle (a puff of soot lands on his feet). She rolls her eyes. "And I'd tell Arthur the same thing I told Gwen, that I'm here to steal one of his cloaks." Morgana levers herself off the bed, bare arms flexing.

Since she'd be able to beat him in a fistfight (and because it will upset the Prat), he lets her rustle through Arthur's wardrobe at length. When she finally comes out of it she's got a roughly woven, rust-colored bundle draped over her arm--Merlin recognizes it as Arthur's ugliest cloak, perhaps even his ugliest item of clothing. (He'd look good in it anyway. There's not much that can be done to make him less distracting_\--_Merlin has already tried clashing ensembles, badly-scented soaps, and overly-frequent haircuts. _  
_

He shakes his head and watches Morgana knot the ties of the cloak briskly in front of her throat.

"We should meet tomorrow night, at Gaius's," she says.

"Absolutely not."

Morgana shoots him a savage glare that is for a moment, uncannily like to Arthur's, and just like Arthur, seems to perceive the exact moment when he capitulates.

"Gaius knows about you, I assume?" He nods quickly and bends back over the ashes at his feet. He'd rather she see charcoal on his face than guilt.

"Tonight, then," she says, and trips on the cloak.

"Very unobtrusive," he mutters, dryly. Couldn't you just borrow something of Gwen's?"

"I'm not bringing her into this," Morgana snarls, and he leaves it at that.

*

"So," Merlin says, spooning stew into his mouth. Gaius raises one eyebrow so far above the other that Merlin already knows exactly how this is going to go. 

Indeed, it goes much the same as hundreds of conversations they've had before. Gaius is implacable in the face of his fervor. Eventually, seized by passion, he leaps out of his chair and delivers the entire speech he's been rehearsing for If Arthur Finds out, gesturing wildly with his spoon when he lands on important words like_ injustice_.

Gaius is silent for a long moment. Something splatters on the floor.

Finally, he says, "No one will change his mind, Merlin." He looks very weary and very old. He is, of course, old--how many years old? How many years that passed in a blur of blood and smoke, how many empty years after that, when no one was left to burn?

"If she can't control it, she can't hide," Merlin says softly.

Gaius' left eyebrow nearly joins his hairline. "And you consider yourself an expert in subtlety and caution? I assure you Merlin, _you are not_."

"Who else is there to help her?" Gaius is silent awhile, stirs the stew that's gone cold in his bowl.

"Well, what's done is done. But I warn you Merlin, if this ends badly—"

"She'll be here in an hour," Merlin says, and goes to toss his bowl in a bucket of grey water that is already full with pitchers and porringers and the other wooden bowls. He'll deal with them later, probably; he's got about an hour to plan a sorcery lesson. 

It's an arduous task; no matter how carefully he pores over the delicate lettering, none of the spells in his book strike him as particularly accessible to beginner sorcerers. He schools his knitted brows into a neutral expression when Gaius knocks, unwilling to admit defeat.

"If you're expecting to entertain company, might I suggest not leaving your smallclothes about?"

Merlin makes a waving motion and the numerous items carpeting the floor form a pile in the corner.

Gaius' expression does not soften. "And you had better take care. I have no doubt that even the appearance of a dalliance would come with severe consequences for both of you. Don't roll your eyes at me. If Uther detects the slightest possibility that Morgana's virtue has been sullied she will be married immediately and you will be lashed within an inch of your life, if you're lucky.

Gaius closes the door firmly, and Merlin, slightly sobered, is struck with sudden insight. Surely, the page-copying spell he'd used to forge Lancelot a seal of nobility could be used to copy entire books. The situation with Lancelot hadn't ended well, of course, but that wasn't really the spell's fault. And it had been easy; he hadn't even needed to practice it.

There's a conveniently timed knock at the door, and he opens it to Morgana, draped head to toe in the ridiculous cloak. She tosses it imperiously across the bed and bends curiously over the open spellbook.

"Ah, yes. That. It's erm--a useful reference."

She doesn't answer him, staring down at what he knows is an illustration of an eel chopped into segments, the little white circles of bone showing at the cross-sections. Her fingers are trembling as she turns the page. Simply touching it--surely Uther wouldn't kill her for that; perhaps he'd only have her hands cut off for touching it, or crushed with weights. He shakes his head.

"I was thinking, maybe you'd want to make your own copy."

"Yes. Yes."

It's harder than Merlin expected. He can do the spell, easily, and he can explain what it feels like to get it right, but he can't tell her what to _do_, exactly. Morgana attempts it about fifty times, and not so much as an inkblot shows up on the page. She continues reciting the spell in varying tones of voice, her shoulders tense with frustration.

They jump when Gaius opens the door.

"You two have got to lower your voices, I can hear everything you say from out there. You've got to _think_ about using a pen, Morgana. Some spells are cast more easily by imagining the real thing, to begin with. Imagine yourself at your desk, _think_ about the quill in your hand, and try again." It only takes her three more tries to get the whole page, and Gaius grunts in a way that leaves it unclear whether he's proud or exasperated.

"If you're going to make contraband from scratch, you might as well use a glamour while you're at it."

"How?" Merlin and Morgana say, simultaneously.

"Glamors are notoriously difficult to cast. There's no way to test whether you've succeeded and they often fail for more perceptive viewers. But it's possible," he says, eyes glinting shrewdly, "to can make a glamour part of the copying spell. Perhaps the viewer might see something else, for example, a blank book, or a journal entry. A bit more likely to be successful."

They gawp.

"But only a bit," he huffs, and walks away.

They squabble after that; Morgana insists on being able to reproduce colors accurately, Merlin wants to skim through to find something on glamours, and there's only one book. It's still the best time Merlin's had in days, and he guesses that Morgana feels the same.

*

She's back on Thursday with a small, stout book tucked into the folds of the hideous cloak. Merlin traces curious fingers over the new vellum pages--they are pale and nearly flawless, and Morgana flashes him a triumphant smile.

"Lovely," he says.

"Would be a shame to waste it with colors _untrue to the original illuminations_."

Merlin sighs and goes to gather candles from all the nooks where he's left them. He lights a great deal before Morgana is satisfied with the lighting, and she immediately burns a chunk of hair leaning over to squint at the ornate details of the uppercase _M _on page one (she bats it out, unperturbed), and does another ten pages before she lets Merlin alternate with her_. _By page one hundred Merlin has a headache. Morgana continues obstinately when he hesitates.

"Do you want to take a break?"

"Do _you_?"

He leaps off the table, "I want to take some chicken from the kitchens."

What he comes back with is actually a neckerchief of bread and cheese, since Cook is very careful to lock the meat where thieves cannot get it. Morgana takes the nicest bit of bread and starts casting again, and Merlin eats cheese and lets her wear herself out (she makes it to page one-fifty). The candles burn down into stubs by page two-fifty, and Merlin's eyes start closing of their own accord around page three-hundred.

He jolts awake to a grating sound, the opened page of his copy of the book sticking to his cheek as he lifts his head. Morgana is snoring loudly, her face pillowed in the folds of her bell sleeves. The candles have melted into little pools and burned out (except for one brave holdout that is more wick than wax).

"Morgana," he hisses.

Morgana jerks awake. "Christ's wounds" She rubs her puffy eyes and squints down. "Alright. Page three-twelve. Nearly done."

"Nearly done?"

"Only eighty left."

"_Gods_ above."

"Oh, buck up Merlin. By the way, you've got--" she gestures to her cheek, "drool, I think."

*

In the lower town, a stable boy laces his boots in the dark. He is Cuthbert, third son of a poor farmer, and his lover is the daughter of a knight. She'd always given him the brightest smiles when he saddled her horses, and one day he'd gotten bold, tucked a posy of wildflowers into her stirrup (she came back with bright eyes and violets in her hair). Now they meet at the edge of the forest every other night to whisper tender words and exchange little gifts (along with other, more carnal diversions).

With his breath held, Cuthbert pins his cloak and straps a dagger to his hip. He steps cautiously past the sleeping figures of his family and opens the door into the cool night. A breeze whispers in his ears as he navigates the cobbled streets, though there is no wind to tug at his cloak. It takes him longer than usual to find the gate; he keeps getting turned around in alleys that are only dimly familiar.

He finds himself facing a wall, trapped on either side by buildings he has never seen before. It doesn't make sense. He's lived in Camelot all his life, there's nowhere he's not explored years ago with his friends.

_Shhhhhhhhh_, the breeze whispers, and he decides it's alright, he's just forgotten. Maybe there was nothing to remember, anyway.

_Knife, _the breeze says, and he unsheathes it, holds the blade up to the moonlight. He's forgotten that breezes don't talk.

When they find him in the morning there's almost no blood left in his body and the cracks between the cobblestones of the street are dark. Rumors go around that he was courting above his station, and by the end of the day it's forgotten for everyone except Cuthbert's family and a brokenhearted knight's daughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment and share your thoughts—I need all the feedback I can get!


	3. A Reveal

Before_ all this_, Merlin had found the summer days beginning to drag—Arthur's away more often than not, hunting with the knights or terrorizing various serfs on Uther's behalf. Now, the weeks fly past in a pleasant blur of scheming. They've agreed to go through their books page by page and master each spell, taking careful notes in a coded alphabet Morgana had invented as a child. He leans heavily on magic for his chores so he can catch up on the hours of sleep he misses at night, which is nearly all of them. Morgana pretends to be above such mortal requirements, but he catches her dozing with a Latin tome in her lap (Gwen shoos him away with a finger to her lips and an uncharacteristically fierce glare).

Tonight, they're working on locking and unlocking, which is proving trickier than planned.

"It's funny," Morgana says, her chin in her hands, cape bundled up on the table to provide a pillow for her inevitable two-in-the-morning catnap. "I can unlock jewelry boxes and even the Great Hall, but not a cell door or anyone's room but mine."

Merlin looks at her askance. "A cell door?"

"Aglovale falls asleep after lunch, quite reliably."

"Good _Gods. _Do not tell Gaius you tried that."

"You're one to talk."

Merlin rolls his eyes. "Anyway, I've got a theory." He picks at the quill in his hands.

"Hm."

"Obviously, it's harder to, say... magically collapse a castle, than it is to magically move a pebble. Why?"

"Things that are difficult to do without magic are also difficult with it. That doesn't explain why I can open a large door and not another, smaller door."

"Well, I think people's intentions act to counteract magic. That is..."

"Go on, Merlin."

"When you lock your jewelry box you aren't really afraid of losing your jewels."

"Uther wouldn't let a thief away with their life."

"Right. And no one's even in the Great Hall at night, which I'm assuming is when you tried--it's locked as a matter of _procedure_. But when someone does something very, erm, very intentionally, it's almost like they cast a tiny magic. You have to fight their intentions with yours."

"So it's harder to open a door if there's someone who wants it to stay closed."

"Yes."

"Could be why glamours are trickier than telekinetics. No one much cares if you move a chair somewhere else. Most people are quite fond of the truth."

"That's brilliant."

"Thank you, _Emrys_._" _Morgana leans down to hide a smile and scribbles in her notes. "I'm fond of mind-magic, you know. Don't look at me like that, you're sarcastic about Arthur's titles all the time."

"And he ought not to be," comes Gaius's growl, and a door creaks open behind them. Merlin shifts awkwardly in his chair; Morgana says an unladylike word under her breath. Gaius marches over to a shelf and sets a little vial down on it vindictively. "Well, go on, don't mind me. Surely if you're having a discussion in the main room you expected visitors?"

"It's a bit late for them," says Morgana, without looking at him. Merlin is somewhat worried that her glare may incinerate the table.

"Hm," says Gaius, and then there is a very painful silence.

"You could help us," Merlin blurts, when the silence becomes too painful. Gaius frowns at him. "I'm sure the one thing we all agree on is that I'm a very bad teacher."

While I can't say I approve of your lack of subtlety--_or_ lack of sleep," Gaius mutters, "the Pendragon house is worryingly oblivious to magical attempts on their lives, and what you are learning may, in fact, be useful. If--" he punctuates this with a very raised eyebrow, "you manage not to get yourselves killed."

"We're very prone to near misses," says Merlin. "I think you had better supplement our education."

Gaius settles into one of the chairs with a grunt, hunching forward over his knees. "Since the alternative appears to be letting you get up to trouble on your own, I suppose that I had better."

*

Gaius's instruction, though sporadic, speeds up their progress a great deal--at least until the week after Imbolc, when there's a mild outbreak of the pox. Understandably, Gaius is busy tending to patients, and Merlin is nearly run off his feet checking in with the more worrisome cases and gathering supplies. For the first time in months, he doesn't meet Morgana for four days in a row.

Merlin feels the loss, but it's not unbearable until most of the kitchen girls get sick and he and Gwen are recruited to pluck the cache of birds Arthur kills with his hunting party. There's an obscene amount of them, ducks and pheasants and smaller things that are more feathers than meat. It's not long before Merlin's fingers start to ache, and Gwen (while doesn't say a word of complaint) doesn't wear her usual smile. It's a stroke of luck that Morgana returns from a ride with some of the court ladies when they are halfway through; it's even more fortunate that she catches one of Merlin's significant glance across the yard as she dismounts.

"Gwen," she calls, "would you come and help me, please?"

Gwen goes with only the tiniest apologetic glance back (he doesn't blame her), and Morgana manages to herd her ladies-in-waiting back to the stables with record speed. Goddess bless her, he's alone with the fowl.

The remaining problem is that he's not sure what spell he can use to pluck a bird. He suspects a gust of air powerful enough to take feathers off will not be at all subtle, and vaporizing them will leave the burlap sack in front of him noticeably empty.

Eventually, he thinks to try the unlocking spell, and the plumage comes off in his hands with only the gentlest of tugs. When Gwen gets back (flushed and smiling, with a bit of straw in her hair), she is too grateful to question how he's finished all on his own.

He leaves a few sprigs of pine on the windowsill between Arthur and Morgana's rooms, later. _Patients in tower. _The next time he comes past, arms full of Arthur's laundry, it's been replaced with a sprig of milkweed. _My room.  
_

They've never actually met in Morgana's room (this is because it's a fairly bad idea). But they've been working on scrying, this week, which is one of the first really challenging spells for him. And really, it's such a vital skill that surely it's worth a bit of risk. For Arthur's sake. Merlin leaves the milkweed (stem now carefully bent in half) in the same place, and carries on, whistling.

Once the laundry's done, there's supper, and after that he helps Gaius with the patients. There's only a few left in the tower, and they're all very old, very young, or already afflicted with another illness. They're done administering water, broth, and tinctures before dark, and Merlin feels a guilty delight.

When he gets to Morgana's it takes a second to orient himself. He's been in her chambers a few times, but he's been in Arthur's so many more that the contrast is dizzying. It's the same amount of space, but it smells like perfume and freshly cut plants (probably that's from the huge pile of them on her desk). The dark is lit by an army of candles, and he can see that every surface has fabric on it—but not in the chaotic way his own room does. There are silk dresses and satin cloaks draped over chairs and screens, and there are velvet curtains and soft carpets under his feet. He notices a few bundles of herbs at various stages of drying hanging from twine around her bed frame.

Morgana rises from where she's sitting behind the forest of shrubs on her desk.

"Did Gwen get those?"

"Who else? It's her job." Morgana says sharply, cheeks faintly flushed.

"Mhm. I've seen her picking them; she looks very serious about it. Not at all besotted." Morgana narrows her eyes at him.

He shouldn't have said it. The New Religion, and Uther by extension, doesn't look kindly on, _that, _and he doesn't want to make her feel nervous_, _like he—like _someone_ might, if they were_.  
_

"I've been drying them and crushing them for weeks now. I want to be prepared when we get to the potions section."

"How do you explain them to the, erm, uninitiated?" Merlin pushes one of the twine bundles hanging above the bed, making it swing back and forth. Suddenly, the air smells strongly of thyme.

"We sew them into these." She hands him a little linen pouch. (He doesn't ask who _we_ is, since that's obvious.)

"Any chance they'd stop Arthur's gauntlets from reeking so badly? His boots too."

"Probably not, but worth a go." Morgana reaches under her desk and takes out her copy of the spellbook. There are stacks of notes jammed between the pages, and it rustles violently when she sets it down on the top of it.

They take turns practicing the scrying spells, passing a cup of water from back and forth. Merlin's left his full washbasin on a windowsill so they've got something to scry _at_. When it works, they can see the dark rafters in one half of the cup and the white glow of moonlight in the other. He's faster getting it to work, but it gives him a headache almost immediately. Morgana can stare at the water indefinitely (seers are better at these things, according to Gaius).

Merlin wishes he hadn't told her this, because she'd taken it very seriously. There's no spell for scrying with sound in their books, but Morgana had found a collection of folk tales that featured Sidhe incantations, which she had painstakingly transcribed, translated, and classified. One, she insisted, was for being able to hear as well as see through any reflective surface.

She's determined that they at least_ try_ it, so they spend several miserable hours lying on their stomachs in her bed, squinting at scribbled code with their heads propped up on their elbows.

"I admit defeat," Morgana pronounces, still glaring into the cup (the room is silent).

Merlin rubs his burning eyes and speaks before he's finished yawning "Every conceivable pronunciation has been attempted. Maybe you have to be Sidhe for it to work. With, you know." He yawns again, wider. " A Very Magical Staff."

Morgana sighs. "Maybe."

Merlin turns to lie on his back and tucks his hands behind his head (it's risky since the bed is soft, but the sky is still ink-black, and they're usually up until pre-dawn grey in the window).

"I hate lying to her," Morgana says, abruptly. 

"Gwen?" He hadn't really needed to ask. "Haven't got a choice, have we? Anyone who knows is complicit."

"There's always a choice," Morgana says, rolling onto her back beside him. "If it was me, if it was someone I loved, I would rather know." She tips her head sideways to look at him. "Wouldn't you want to know, if it was Arthur?"

"Arthur is the Prince, and I am his bumbling servant," Merlin says, with a straight face.

"You're both incredibly thick," Morgana sighs. "But particularly him. The _constant_ lingering glances."

"He's the_ King's son_. And even if he wasn't, he won't--" Merlin makes a floundering gesture, "he won't even admit that we're friends! so—"

"_Please._ What do you expect, a declaration of tender affections? He's not been capable of that since Uther sent him out on campaigns as a thirteen-year-old boy. Thirteen, Merlin. With blood on his hands." She turns her head back to gaze at the ceiling. "He might have been like my brother, once. When we were young we played, bickered, pulled pranks on the nursemaids." She takes a loud breath. "But when he came back from the first trip, he wouldn't even look at me."

They are quiet after that, for a while.

"I think loneliness is the price of power," she says, finally, and he has nothing to say in reply.

*

"What in Christ's name is this?"

Merlin jolts awake. He squints into the daylight, trying to remember where he is.

_Right._

Arthur is standing at the foot of Morgana's bed. She's standing too, arms crossed in front of her. Each is nearly shaking with undiluted outrage.

"What's gotten into you, Morgana? I'm sure you've always been brazen, but _bedding_ my _manservant?_"

"Perhaps if I'm whorish enough Uther won't be able to marry me off to some appalling dodderer!"

"Rest _assured_, Morgana..." Arthur can't seem to go on. He pinches the bridge of his nose and turns his gaze to the floor. When he looks up, he seems to have composed himself.

Then he meets Merlin's eyes and lunges toward the bed. "_You. _You had better get up and defend yourself." 

"Calm down, _My Lord_, we were only--" he leaps to the opposite side of the bed before Arthur can grab him by the throat.

"Only what?" Arthur begins rounding the bed. It's only bad luck that he knocks Morgana's spellbook off the edge of the coverlet as he goes.

It explodes magnificently on the floor. There's a single, agonizing moment where Arthur looks down at what must be a heap of scattered parchment, and Merlin thinks maybe he'll just keep going. Then he stops and falls into a crouch like he's tracking an animal. Morgana grabs at it before he does, and he tugs it roughly out of her grip.

"What the hell is this?" Arthur stands and begins to thumb through the book with gloved hands, careless of the notes still wedged between the pages that drop to the floor.

"It's my journal," Morgana says. She sounds indignant, but Merlin can see the tension in her shoulders, knows she's chanting the same words he is. _Goddess, please let them work._

And the glamors_ must_ work, because Arthur tosses the book back down and turns the bright flare of his gaze to Merlin, snarling. "You still haven't explained why he's here." His voice crescendoes to a shout. "Well? Merlin? Why are you here? Could you really not think of _any_ more appropriate dalliance?"

"It wasn't a dalliance," Morgana hisses, "you only assumed it was because you're a thickheaded war pig who likes to solve problems with your fists. I've taken an interest in herbalism recently, and Merlin's teaching me some of what Gaius has taught him. In secret, because Uther is a tyrant about women's education."

"Herbalism," Arthur says flatly. "Is that what these are, then?" He bends down to retrieve a handful of the notes.

"Yes," Merlin says, meeting his eyes steadily.

"Fine," Arthur says, and strides out of the room. Merlin lets out the breath he's been holding in, his veins buzzing like he's downed a pitcher of mulled wine. Is he lightheaded because he stood too fast, or because this is the worst possible beginning to this day?

"Praise. The. Goddess." It's only after he says it that he looks at Morgana. Her face is frighteningly pale, her eyes too wide, too worried. _He might have been like my brother, once._

"Please," he whispers, trying to stamp down the panic that's burning like nausea in the back of his throat, "please tell me that Arthur does not know that code."

"It was twelve years ago," she whispers, and maybe she says something else after that, but he doesn't hear it. He's standing by the burning elm tree again, but this time there is no Will, no Hunith, no one to put the fire out. He's not sure how long he stands there, shocked and unmoving, before the door opens, and Arthur walks slowly to Morgana's desk, mail clinking. There's a terrible, silent pause after he sets the notes down, and then he slams his palm down on top of them. Morgana flinches.

Another near-silence, broken only by Arthur's breathing.

"So," he says, voice dangerously low, "Which one of you is the sorcerer?"

"It's botany," Morgana says, and her voice is impressively calm.

"It's not," Arthur says, "it's very obviously not. And I'm disappointed to say that I can't decide which of you is the more suspicious." That almost makes Merlin laugh. He wonders absently why exactly Arthur is even here, how he managed to choose today to burst into Morgana's rooms unannounced. Was either of them even _taught_ to knock? Could such a vital part of education as manners have been missed, for both of them?

"I _order_ you to tell me who is responsible, or I will take you both to the dungeons immediately," Arthur says.

"It's me," Merlin says, and Morgana says it at the same time. Everyone stares wide-eyed at everyone else.

Arthur drags a hand down his face.

"So," he says, "either both of you are abominable liars, collaborating to commit the highest of crimes. Or it's just you, Merlin, and Morgana's treasonously sheltering you as she did with that little druid boy." They don't respond, of course. Arthur might have had a chance if it was just one of them, Merlin thinks, might have had a chance to be betrayed and furious and vengeful, but at this he is only stunned.

"I will see both of you in my chambers, _tonight_." he grits out, finally. He turns on his heel and goes, tossing the notes into the fire on his way out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this working? Did I use too many italics and em dashes? I know that I did, but still- tell me about it in the comments!


	4. A Sentinel

"If he was going to turn us in, he would have done it," Morgana says, under her breath.

"Glad you think so, since I've been too busy carting pox ointment around to handle my end-of-life affairs."

"At least you could keep busy."

"Picking herbs until your hands are numb is much less engaging than fearing for your life, shockingly."

It's not real bickering, Merlin knows. Neither of them wants to think about what's going to happen in Arthur's chamber.

"Do you have horses ready for us, at least?"

"No." Morgana raises her chin. "I refuse to flee. If Uther wants my head, I'll be looking him in the eye when it comes off." Her eyes are bright with a crazed sort of courage that is very comforting to witness--she's the sort of person who could lead armies into battle. Being a bit unhinged is a requirement for generals, in Merlin's experience. 

"Bully for you," Is what he says.

"I'm going to knock."

She does, before he can stop her.

"Enter!" comes Arthur's muffled shout, and they do.

He's standing in front of his desk, fingertips pressed into the smooth wood and a sword laid out in front of him. That sword has killed before: not only bandits and invaders, but druids and sorcerers, and maybe their accomplices when they would not come quietly. Probably women, maybe even children--better not to imagine them.

"Magic," Arthur says, "is a corrupting influence. It is mostly, if not wholly, evil. Its use," he pauses here, inhales softly, "is one of the highest crimes in Camelot. The pain it has caused is irreparably great and its potential for harm is without limit."

He looks very tired. His hair is crisp at the edges where sweat has dried, and he must have washed his face, but there are streaks of dust and blood on his neck. Merlin feels a bit sorry for his knights, who almost certainly look worse.

"Did you practice that?" Morgana says, and before Arthur can reply. "None of that is true. I was born with magic. I have been tormented for years by dreams that you know I did not invite. If you think that I am wholly evil for that then you are lost, and all hope for Camelot is lost with you."

"I don't believe that you're evil, Morgana—"

"Then why is your naked sword lying between us like a threat?"

Arthur's face twists, but he does not take away the sword.

"The magic you--the magic that has, has taken hold of you--is no different from a disease. I beg you to pursue its cure and not provoke it, for your own sake."

Looking at them, it is difficult to tell if Arthur or Morgana feels more anguish. Arthur, Merlin decides, as he leans down heavily on the heels of his hands, palms pressing into the desk in front of him.

"You," Arthur says, turning his gaze to Merlin, "I cannot forgive so easily. I can now see that you have deceived me from the moment you entered my service. Such a deliberate betrayal is treason, and merits the same punishment."

"I'm sure you must also know," Morgana says cooly, "That he's saved you from dying countless times." Arthur ignores her, eyes locked on Merlin's.

"Well, if you want me dead I'd prefer you did it now. Burning hurts more, I imagine."

"Damn you," Arthur chokes out, stricken. He opens his mouth again, but says nothing, and then bows his head, looking wretched.

Merlin can feel a tear track down his face, and clenches his teeth.

Arthur lifts his head and blows air out his nostrils like a warhorse. His voice, when he speaks, is surprisingly quiet. "Did you light the way for me?"

It's odd that Arthur asks first about a little blue light in a cave, and not the Griffin or the Questing Beast. But at least the answer is easy.

"It's my job to, apparently."

Arthur looks down at his hands, still gauntleted, on the table. Merlin suddenly wants to take off the gloves and kiss the rough hands under them (a better, truer fealty than the common loyalty he was assigned).

"Is it?" Arthur's eyes are so very blue, and Merlin might even kiss his brow, if Morgana was not there.

"Well." It's the sort of gruff pronouncement Uther might make, when he wearies of a discussion, and Merlin dislikes it. "If I am to allow this bald betrayal of my father's will, I would like to be convinced. Placated. And let me make clear that sleeping in each others' beds is not the way. Firstly, because it reeks of indecorousness."

The statement reeks with hypocrisy, since Merlin is well aware of both Blanche and Olwen, and he clears his throat quietly. 

"_Secondly_, because it was all too easy to catch you. This week, you'll do sorcery in my rooms only. Merlin, you're underfoot anyway, and Morgana's only a hallway away, so there's no trouble on that account. Now go to bed, both of you."

Morgana goes first. Merlin stares long and hard at Arthur, before he follows, heart hammering.

*

  
"I ought to have known he would make this into an extravagant affair," Morgana sighs, after Arthur leaves to demand a guard on his room door.

The two of them sit on his desk, listening to the sound of his boots on the stone fade, and return accompanied by another set of footsteps. Then his voice comes through, muffled but audible.

"I am reviewing documents of importance related to Lord Edric's proposals, and I mustn't be disturbed by anyone except the King. If my father summons me, you may knock twice and I will be on my way."

Arthur comes in then, and slides an iron fireplace poker between the door handles, as if the existing bar is not satisfactory. He gives the room a dissatisfied glance, his hands on his hips.

"It's too quiet," he says at last, glaring at Merlin. "Anyone could hear anything." Morgana takes off her cloak and rolls it up, jams it under the door. "Is that—that's my—"

"Never mind," Merlin cuts in, "we'd also better do a muffling spell, if we can."

They can't, much to Arthur's chagrin. He directs them to replace the cloak and converse in a normal tone once he's outside, and ducks out on pretense of further instructing the unfortunate sentry. His frown has lessened, when he returns.

"Couldn't hear us?"

"For once," he says, staring at Merlin even though it was Morgana who'd asked. "Get off my desk." He watches them from under lowered lashes as they relocate to the table, wet quill dangling from his hand as if he might somehow annotate what is surely a stack of complete reports. 

"I suppose we're moving on," Morgana says, "since an inconsiderate person burned my scrying notes. What's the next thing? I seem to have_ lost my bookmark_." A pointed glance at Arthur.

"_Scrying_ sounds awfully like spying," Arthur says darkly.

"That's what it is," Morgana says, determined to make things maximally difficult. "Though sometimes the person wants to be spied on, and spies on you back."

Arthur's eagerly belligerent expression is worryingly similar to Morgana's. "I imagine that any upstart with the ability to hire and train sorcerers could use this quite damagingly."

Merlin presses his fingers into his temples. Is an anti-sorcery Uther any better than Uther with sorcerers at his side, crushing his next-least-favourite sort of behaviour? It wasn't a question he'd planned on asking himself today.

"Like any religion, or any tool, for that matter, magic can be abused," he says, through gritted teeth. 

"Legislation would need to be put in place," Arthur rubs his chin thoughtfully, eyes distant.

"Perhaps a council of sorcerers to advise the king," says Morgana.

"Will you both stop talking about matters of state? Some of us have rather a lot of_ chores_ still to do_._ By the way, we're learning glamours, Morgana."

Since they'd used glamours already to make the spellbook, the next hour is less arguing about phonemes and more active experimentation (delightfully, Arthur can't quite school his expression into disapproval). He even manages to be helpful--they're trying to veil each other in the dullness that makes a person easily overlooked, if not invisible, to the common man, and he is the only common man on hand to check with.

"On a scale of one to ten, how drab is he?" Morgana frowns at her work (which is Merlin, sitting on the table).

"Well, I'm easily able to notice his lack of respect for my furniture," Arthur's pen scratches forcefully on an unlucky page.

"He doesn't respect it much, does he?"

"Just as much as I respect the man," Merlin says, grinning.

"Perhaps you ought to sit on him next," says Morgana, under her breath, "I wonder if it would brighten his sullen disposition."

"Stop whispering about me," Arthur says, and then drops his quill suddenly. "Christ's wounds. There's been no one to relieve my sentry. You, you--be back tomorrow at the same time."

"Tomorrow."

"What exactly are we mean to be doing."

Arthur looks thoughtful. "You," he says, pointing his pen at Merlin, "will be washing my floor. As for Morgana and myself... well. Strangely, I can feel myself beginning to take an interest in the histories of Albion."

*****

They get along in a tense, tentative way until Arthur learns about their weekly meeting with Gaius. He's livid, and Merlin can understand it, knows just as well as anyone that Gaius isn't fit for a long, hard ride over Camelot's borders and a life of meagre food and borrowed lodgings after that. It's hard to explain that it's worth it even for Gaius, that unspent magic buzzes angrily in fingers and toes, that secrets start to burn at the base of your skull.

"Are you going to order us not to go, then?"

Arthur ignores the question and swivels on his heel to prowl the length of his room for the fifth time. Morgana's not there, which is a shame; she can be very diplomatic when she wants to.

Merlin eventually leaves him to his pacing and is only mildly guilty about it (Gaius does ask him, once, if he's alright, but that's hardly out of the ordinary). When they finish listening to his lecture on healing magics he goes back up to Arthur's rooms, on pretense of stoking the fire.

He's really got no objection to keeping The Prat happy. His chores are easier that way, for one.

"What in hell are you doing?" Arthur asks, when he picks up the poker.

"Stoking the fire."

"It's _May._"

Merlin sets the poker down and refolds a shirt that was mostly folded already.

"So. It all went well, then."

"Usually does. Gaius just talks, mostly."

"Hm." Arthur sits up. His shirt is mussed and hanging off his shoulder in a manner that is the definition of indecorous. "About magic."

"About how to do it properly, yes." Merlin goes to open the window. He can nearly feel Arthur rolling his eyes, but he doesn't say anything about the inherent contradiction of an open window and a roaring fire.

Good servants put on their master's hose, and lay the coverlets over them, Merlin has come to learn. Merlin is not a good servant and so does not do these things, ordinarily. Still, it's his job to do them, and he focuses on that fact as he picks up the coverlet from where it's draped at Arthur's hips and lays it over his ribcage.

Arthur's gaze is disturbing in its intensity. For a shocking moment there is only Arthur's eyes and Arthur's skin, warm on Merlin's fingertips through the linen of his shirt. When it begins to feel too dangerous Merlin leaves him there, a gust rushing through the window at his heels and scattering sparks from the hearth.

*

"We're getting too predictable."

"Nonsense. Uther thinks I'm doting on you. It's the brotherly affection, you see."

Morgana rolls her eyes. "Somehow more implausible than even _that_ is that you've supposedly been reading the same dusty tome two hours a night for weeks. Do you mean to begin claiming you're illiterate?" 

Arthur frowns down at the book in front of him. It's nearly as thick as his head (a rare occurrence, in Merlin's experience). He mutters something back at Morgana that Merlin doesn't hear over the pounding in his own skull.

Uther's been felling trees to expand the roadways, and he spends the nights sweating, skin stretched too-tight over burning muscles and aching bones. Gaius has plied him with salves to no avail, and Kilgarrah only laughs at him, says that being Master Of The Earth's Lifeforce comes at a cost. He doesn't bother replying that he never agreed to pay it. Besides that, he's been having a very bad time practicing magic with Morgana, for being A Font Of Elemental Power.

"Merlin?" Arthur says, in a snappish tone that implies it's not the first time he's said it.

"Hmm?"

"Bring me up some more books before tomorrow. Since _Morgana--_" he lingers scornfully on her name, "thinks I'll need them, to be convincing."

"I can't."

"You can't."

"I'm banned."

"Then Morgana can go herself."

"She's banned too," Merlin says numbly, trying to divine why this conversation is taking place.

"God above, you two are useless for a pair of sorcerers, aren't you? Fine, I'll get it myself."

"While you're there," Morgana pipes in, in a suspiciously demure tone, "would you mind grabbing A Guide to Helthe and Physic?"

"What are you doing?" Merlin asks her, when Arthur has stormed off.

"I need that book," Morgana says simply, "and we were both banned."

They are, in fact, both banned. Merlin for knocking over a few books (how was he to know, really, that they were particularly old and that he'd damage the spines extensively and beyond repair with a misplaced elbow?), Morgana (and Gwen by extension), for reading too much and neglecting more ladylike pursuits. 

"Because your education has been left 'mouldering and neglected'."

"Yes. Also, I've thought of how to fix your headaches. Arthur will thank me later, since he's miserable over your misery," she adds. "It's something from Gaius's lecture actually."

Gaius' lecture, though only two days previous, is blurry in his mind. _Right._ Gaius's raspy voice: _when applied to the wrong object--and I think you can imagine my meaning--these spells are seriously dangerous_. (They had been well able to imagine his meaning, since he'd warned them against any attempt at necromancy the first time they met and weekly since.) Merlin had nodded, foggy with fatigue. Morgana had looked worryingly thoughtful.

"_Morgana_."

"I intend to animate the trees."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soo... I've extended this to be 7 chapters. I'm better at sprinting through short chapters I guess, so this just works out. 
> 
> As always, your feedback is very much appreciated!


	5. A Duel

When Morgana actually gets the book, it turns out to be, well, menacing. The first two pages are a remedy for toothache and stomachache, respectively, which would be fine if they didn’t both involve drinking human blood. By the time they've found the animating spell, which is elegantly titled _For Breathing Life Ento Limbs_, Morgana is no longer so keen to try it.

Merlin dares her to, though, and the sapling she spells almost strangles him before he can regret it. In the end, Arthur had to be called, and was none too happy about sneaking out into the yard at the middle of the night to hack a disturbingly resilient, thrashing elm into pieces.

The next morning their Knight Champion is cranky with lack of sleep and allots a portion of the day to roar at Merlin, who spends most of it sharpening the Knight’s unfortunate sword, which will probably never be the same. Gaius(who has heard rumors of a conspicuouslydemolished tree on the grounds) has them practice tying knots with magic "since it seems they're incapable of being either delicate or precise."

They have no success. It’s the worst sort of task, difficult enough to be frustrating, but simple enough to be boring. Moving things is easy, moving things that are not solid within centimeter accuracy is not, and they wouldn’t have kept at it, except that Gaius had been hinting at a possible trip to the forest for some more involved practices, and neither Merlin nor Morgana wants that postponed.

Around an hour in, Morgana suggests tying Arthur’s ankles together when he’s not looking as a possible application, which lends a bit of needed humor to the situation. They’re both feeling a little panicky, knowing that Gaius will be back soon, will think they haven’t tried if they still can’t do it. Eventually with Morgana levitating the rope and Merlin moving the ends, they get a square knot, and Morgana throws a triumphant fist in the air.

“With a bit of range practice we’d be more invaluable in a siege than a trebuchet,” she says, and Merlin thinks it’s a little silly for Morgana to set her sights on scaling fortresses until he realizes she’s never gotten to be needed; even a servant gets taken on campaign sometimes—a lady never does.

He makes them tea, and they share a little moment of calm camaraderie, alone in the dim, dusty warmth. They don’t say anything, just smile at each other, and it’s just the opposite of spending time with Arthur, for Merlin. Morgana is sharp with her words and unnervingly competent, but she makes him feel at ease all the same, makes him wish a little he’d had a sister to grow up with. Moments with Arthur are golden in his mind, and he wants to replay them, wants to look at Arthur’s smiles from new angles. But the recollections always sting with something more than unrequited feelings, something that might be loneliness.

Arthur tolerates their magic, certainly, but he’s still wary of it, Merlin sees him look up from his desk when he assumes they are absorbed with incantations, his eyes nervous. He’s still chivalrous and protective, but he inhabits a world apart from the firelit sphere of his chambers after dusk, Merlin knows, a world where ambitious men and bloodthirsty mobs are his responsibility and his father’s disappointment is his constant companion. He harasses Merlin as cheerfully as ever, but Merlin wonders now if his motive is avoiding a serious conversation that would put an end to the nameless thing that’s between them. The lighthearted exchanges he would have once turned over and polished smooth in his mind as he fell asleep are now too jagged to handle, too heavy with dark possibilities.

He had always imagined that Arthur learning about his magic would make him _less_ lonely.

It’s why he can’t really blame Morgana when she tells him, looking down into her tea, that she’s told Gwen. Gwen, who has already lost everything to Uther’s rage and is now their victim too, bearing the weight of their secrets and lies.

“What did she say?” is all he asks.

“She didn’t say anything,” Morgana answers, and her eyes say there’s more, _a slap?_ Merlin wonders but this is Gwen, so it isn’t. _A kiss? _He feels a sting of jealousy in his chest, and he drinks the rest of his mug too quickly, leaving his mouth gritty and sore.

Morgana doesn’t miss it though, comes to sit beside him and takes his hand.

“It’s not the same,” she whispers, “no one ever told Gwen she had to hate to be worthy of love.”

*

Gwen shows up to their next meeting, and now there’s four of them, orbiting whichever magic textbook is being studied at various radii. She brings a basket of fabric and a wooden box of spooled thread, but she doesn’t embroider more than three stitches (in fairness, Merlin’s sure Arthur’s read about as many words from his _Histories_).

The first few days she’s quiet, only looks at them in curious awe, sometimes leaning over to whisper a question at Morgana. Each time she inches a little closer to Arthur, and eventually when she’s blatantly looking over his shoulder, he offers her a seat beside him. While Merlin and Morgana struggle and become boring to watch, which is most of the time, Gwen and Arthur look over the latest records and reports and accounts.

Arthur eventually lets them stop stuffing Morgana’s cloak under the door. There’s not many policies that Gwen doesn’t have questions about, and even if he doesn’t have the answers (he mostly doesn’t) they keep up a constant hum of chatter. She insists they need a more structured way of training young people in trades, bringing them to the citadel to learn from the best smiths and carpenters, then sending them out to villages where their work is most needed to become experienced. Better quality goods mean they can trade for things they can’t make with other kingdoms, like bronze and copper, which she insists are in too short supply for a city with so many knights. She also wants to know why they can’t provide larger tax incentives for remote villages to trade with the citadel—it would help the people and mean more fish and beef and less of the game and grain they’ve been having for months. There’s no reason why not, and Arthur says he’ll suggest it at a council meeting.

He does, and when Uther claps him on the shoulder at supper and praises him for facilitating the unusually diverse spread of meats, Merlin sees him grin directly at Gwen. She sets down Morgana’s plate with a shy smile that makes Morgana glow in turn. Uther, probably congratulating himself on his serene family, shouts a bit less for the rest of the week.

At the end of it, Arthur (whose self-esteem Merlin marks at an all-time high) delivers a lovely cut of beef to Gwen’s house, personally. Merlin is not surprised to learn that Morgana made him take a lovely leather belt and her regards, too.

Gwen wears the belt to their next meeting (Morgana calls them the _Council of Perfidy _now, which Arthur finds incredibly unfunny).

“I think there should be commoners on the king’s council,” she says, before Merlin and Morgana have even started.

Arthur’s dumbstruck, and then Morgana adds, “women too, and some sorcerers.” His eyes get wider, somehow, but he doesn’t have any sort of outburst, which is to his credit.

Actually, Merlin thinks, it’s the _Council’s of Perfidy’s_ hard work manifesting. For all that Arthur values equality, these are not mild suggestions, and he _should_ be surprised.

"Camelot is a kingdom," Arthur finally says, and his brow is furrowed, "not a tribe of twenty people. Giving more people the power to weigh in only creates an opportunity for others to demand their voices heard, until the monarchy is overturned and there's total anarchy."

Morgana looks worryingly pleased at that idea, but Gwen frowns now.

“I don’t think so. You don’t have to do what they say, you just have to hear from them. Don’t you think they deserve that much? It would be no different than listening to someone’s request for a boon. The final decision is yours whether to grant it, but right now, you don’t even know which decisions you aren’t making.” Gwen’s shocked herself more than Arthur with the outburst, and adds, “not that that’s your fault, of course!” She smooths her perfect skirts a few times, looking down at her lap.

“Just, even my perspective is different enough helpful, and I’m hardly educated or experienced. Think what having some of the village elders might do.”

“You’re right,” Arthur says, rubbing the knuckle of his index finger against his chin. “You and Morgana.”

His mother’s ring catches the candlelight, and Merlin wonders if he’s thinking about her, about how different from Uther she might have been.

*

Gwen walks home by her usual route. She’s got nothing to hide, after all—she serves Morgana at all hours, and there’s no one at home to be suspicious if she’s late, anyway. It’s actually better now, coming home so tired that she can’t spare any energy to cry. Her father is dead, and Uther is cruel, and she is lonely, but it’s better to think about those things in the warm daylight, with Morgana to hold her hand. There had been excuses for holding hands once, the awful dreams, but Morgana sleeps well now, and merely takes Gwen’s hand out of habit whenever there’s a likely moment.

She’s smiling to herself about that, and she almost doesn’t notice the body until she trips on it. It’s an old woman named Inga. Gwen had known her, she realizes in her panic, had bought a hair ribbon from her once in the square. She runs to Gaius, and doesn’t notice the blood on her hands and knees until he tells her to sit down and let him examine her.

“It’s not me,” she pants, and then Merlin’s trotting down the stairs and Gaius is grabbing a leather bag from a shelf, and they’re following her back to the dark streets as fast as Gaius can manage it, but Gwen knows that it won’t matter how fast anyway. Inga is dead.

*

“Let me guess,” Arthur says, when Merlin bursts in without knocking. He’s lacing up his pants, which, _fine_, Merlin should have knocked, but Arthur should have stood behind a screen if he didn’t want to be seen. “Gaius cancelled your field trip because he’s a grouchy old man who hates fun.”

Merlin’s about to reply, and Arthur can see that, so he talks over him.

“Oh wait, perhaps it’s actually because my father is on high alert for sorcerers! _Think,_ Merlin! Four people bled out, for no reason, do you know—”

“Arthur, please just listen.”

“I’m not going to talk to him for you.”

“I wouldn’t normally ask, I just—I think we need the practice. This _is_ sorcery, Arthur, and you’re not going to get anywhere chopping at it with swords.” Arthur scowls, because Merlin’s right, and makes an impatient fold with his hand.

“Bring me a shirt—a _clean _shirt, this time—and I’ll think about it.” Merlin does, surprised at how easily Arthur’s rolled over. He must be worried, if he’s considering letting Merlin and Morgana get involved.

“They didn’t say anything,” Arthur says, after Merlin hands him the shirt. “Three of the people who died, their families didn’t say anything, to anyone.”

“Because they thought they were suicides?”

“Because they thought it was sorcery, and they were more afraid of the witch-hunt than of the witch.” Arthur says, his voice low. “I’ll go to Gaius, Merlin, but if you get—“

“I won’t.”

“You don’t know what I was about to—“

“I do, and I won’t.” Arthur’s beautiful when he’s indignant, and Merlin can’t help irritating him out of pure self indulgence. He deserves it, really, for insisting on being shirtless.

They decide to go out to the woods in two bands, Merlin and Gaius first, walking, and then Arthur with Gwen and Morgana on horseback. Gaius insisted there be plausible deniability—he and Merlin could very well be seeking out some kind of night-blooming plant, and goodness knows Uther’s charges were prone to flights of fancy. Gwen was meant to insulate said charges against scandal, which makes Merlin laugh, because Morgana snogging Arthur is inconceivable, but he’s certain she could be motivated to elope with Gwen.

He's napping in a sort-of clearing when they arrive, and he wakes to the sound of their horses trampling through undergrowth. There’s lots of moonlight, so he can see Morgana riding at the head of the party. She dismounts and loops her reins around a branch and Gwen, close behind her, does the same. He notices that they’re both wearing trousers, and Morgana has a shirt of some light mail on—Gwen must have made it, or at least altered it, because it fits her perfectly.

Gaius is giving her The Eyebrows, probably because armor ruins the tryst-with-Arthur excuse.

She paces around the clearing, levitating the larger branches off the ground and tossing them to the edges. Merlin could help, he supposes, but now Arthur’s horse has ambled into the clearing too, and watching him kick the twigs Morgana deems beneath her out of the way is sort of satisfying. Gods know Merlin’s prepped the training grounds for him plenty of times.

Gwen throws Morgana’s cloak(it’s no longer accurate to call it Arthur’s) onto the ground and drops down on it. The item is no longer particularly stealthy, because she’s worn it around every night for the last 3 months, and at least some of the castle sentries must have noticed, but it is very thick, and Gwen looks contented. Arthur sits down beside her and gives Merlin a serious look.

It’s the same look he gives young knights when they’re about to duel someone better than they are, Merlin realizes. It means _win, _and he’s not sure whether to be flattered or indignant.

Morgana’s doing some kind of stretch, across from him, and he decides to get to his feet and start casting some light wards on himself, to make him fireproof (he thinks, anyway). He’s not sure Morgana _could_ light him on fire, but he’s not keen on finding out. She does something similar, and Gaius stands scowling between them.

“All right, you two,” he grumbles. “You’d better both use your good judgement.” He emphasizes “good judgement” as if it’s an entirely new concept for both of them, which is insulting. Merlin has plenty, he just doesn’t act on it. And while Morgana doesn’t pull punches, she’s surely been planning a strategy that doesn’t involve literal slaughter. She wouldn’t want Gwen to see that, for one, and Gwen’s here now.

Gaius clears his throat.

“No spells on internal organs—only simple telekinetic spells are permitted on your opponent's person. You may manifest objects if you so choose, but you may not summon anything outside the clearing. You may attempt mental manipulation or glamours, but I wouldn’t advise it, because—“

“Because it’s unlikely to work on another magic user, yes,” Morgana says. She’s pacing like a panther. “I’ve been willing Arthur to shut up my whole life with no success anyway.”

Gaius chuckles a little at that. He makes his way to the edge of the clearing and counts down from three. Morgana’s ready right off the hop, but she just tries to shove him back with the simplest spell they know. He shoves in return, and they do that for a while, testing their limits. Neither of them have had much practice pushing other humans around, certainly not ones who are pushing back, and he regrets a little that Arthur’s watching something so unimpressive. Arthur must resent it too, because he gets to his feet after watching five minutes of them waving their hands and shouting with no effect.

“Both of you, against me,” he says, and Gaius probably doesn’t approve, but Arthur’s already pulled the sword off his horse and is charging at Merlin.

Merlin nonverbally spells himself _faster_, avoids the blow for long enough for Morgana to loop an invisible rope around Arthur’s ankle and pull him off balance. He falls to one knee, and Merlin lifts some roots out of the ground, throws them at Arthur like a net. Arthur hacks it to pieces, but Morgana gives the air behind him a shove, and he takes a staggering step forward into a hole Merlin’s just created. It’s not deep, and he leaps out right away, but Morgana, by some stroke of genius, produces a blinding little flash of light right in front of his eyes and that gives Merlin the time he needs to wrench Arthur’s sword out of his hand and tackle him into the crumbled earth he’d torn the roots from.

Arthur graciously yields, writhes out from under Merlin and brushes the dust off him. Gwen is on her feet, her eyes round, and Morgana winks at her, Merlin thinks, though it’s a bit dim to be sure.

They do similar drills for awhile—Arthur gets better, once he figures out there’s only so many spells Merlin and Morgana can do, and then worse again when they take a hushed time out to come up with a more formal strategy. Nothing particularly hazardous happens though, and Gwen manages to shoo a yawning Gaius home on her horse, promising to keep everyone in line.

Arthur waits until he’s out of sight before giving Gwen his sword, and then gets another from who-knows-where, probably Morgana’s horse.

Gwen’s no swordswoman, and she makes them wait while Arthur runs her through fundamentals. After that he whispers something at her, probably instructions to stay in a defensive stance until she sees an obvious weak spot, Merlin thinks. He's watched Arthur fight too many times to be taken by surprise.

It’s actually easier for Merlin and Morgana against both of them, because Arthur’s too focused on protecting Gwen to anticipate their moves. She improves marginally after a few rounds, though, eventually gets a hard blow in on the side of Merlin’s thigh when he isn’t paying attention, and things begin to tip in their favour as Morgana and Merlin tire out.

Eventually, Gwen declares that she’s too sore to do a moment more, and everyone else, less humble but no less tired, flops down with her on Morgana’s cape.

After a pause, she gets up to dig in her saddlebag and comes back with bread and apples and some strips of dried meat, which she distributes evenly (as if she knows how they’d bicker if she hadn’t).

“Bless you, Gwen,” Morgana mumbles, settling her head into the blessed lap, and Gwen strokes her hair absently, watching the stars reflected in her eyes. Merlin lies back too, and the ground is hard and cold against his spine. He’s still warm with exertion, though, and the sky above them sparkles with the brilliance of cloudless fall nights. When he feels Arthur shift down onto his stomach beside him, pillowing his head in the crook of his elbow, he thinks it might be the happiest night of his life.

He dearly hopes it isn’t the last of it’s kind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our fav four together at last. the perfect embodiment of Be Gay, Do Crimes. I love them for it.
> 
> Thanks for reading, I welcome you as always to share your thoughts in the comments and make my day!


End file.
